“I didn’t know he was eleven. I didn’t think just to try a search outside –”
“Not your job,” Chace cut him off. “Your job is to work and learn. My job is to help you learn. I didn’t know he was eleven either. But I also didn’t suggest it. I just expected it. Expected you to do somethin’ you didn’t know to do. It was my fuck up, Marc, not yours.”
“I’ve been an intern for –”
“Doesn’t matter,” Chace interrupted again.
“If we knew, we could have –”
“Shake it off,” Chace ordered.
Marc’s eyes got wide but his tone was bitter when he asked, “Shake off knowin’ I kept those kids from their grandparents for weeks, that girl held captive by a whackjob, all this because I didn’t do somethin’ as simple as do a search with a wider age range?”
“Yeah,” Chace replied and Marc blinked so Chace went on, “Listen, man, you want a career in law enforcement or you move onto anything else, you are gonna fuck up. Your superiors are gonna fuck up but you’ll do the work and feel shit about it or they’ll dump their fuck up on your shoulders. You wanna be a cop, sometimes decisions you gotta make either on the fly or during a long-term investigation are not gonna be the right ones. It’ll happen because you’re human. You gotta cut yourself some slack or, whatever you decide to do in this life, it’ll drag you down. One thing you can learn now is when someone gives you an assignment and doesn’t fully explain it, if they put that shit on you, that reflects on them. I gave you an assignment, I guessed the wrong age range and I made assumptions. You did what you were told. We both gotta live with that. But do not take that blame. Shake it off. Learn from it. And move on. Best you can do and it’s what I’m gonna do.”
Marc studied him then asked quietly, “You’re not pissed?”
“I was yesterday. Now, seein’ your face, seein’ you give a shit, thinkin’ on it, I still am. But at me. I had a bunch of shit goin’ on in my life and didn’t give my attention fully to this. I fucked up and I made you feel the way you feel right now and kept those kids from their folks. But they’ll see them again tonight and soon, they’ll be home and healing. It’s over. We learn from it and move on.”
There it was. Faye having his back and she wasn’t even there. Faye teaching him he couldn’t shoulder the world’s burdens. Teaching him to give himself a break. Teaching him in a way he could teach a decent kid who wanted to do good deeds in his life the same lesson so he didn’t take the world on his shoulders like Chace had done for thirty-five years.
Marc held his gaze. Then he nodded and said, “Next time, I’ll extend the search.”
Chace hoped like hell there wasn’t a next time.
But he didn’t say that. He nodded.
Marc lifted his chin, moved away and Chace watched him go.
Then he gave it a moment, forced himself to let it go, sighed, angled in his truck and headed to Faye.
*
Chace blinked away sleep knowing something wasn’t right.
It was the dark before the dawn and he sensed as well as felt he was alone in his bed.
He lay still and silent, listening to see if Faye was in the bathroom.
He heard nothing so he threw back the covers, walked to his dresser, grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms and pulled them on. He moved through the dark, quiet house, finding nothing, seeing nothing until he noticed the front door open, the storm door closed.
He moved into the foyer, his bare feet silent on the wood, and looked out the door to see Faye in her nightie, one of his sweatshirts and a thick pair of his socks, sitting on a rocking chair like he sat on them, pulled up to the railing of the porch, feet up.
Her eyes were aimed at his plain.
It was near May and they were caught in a valley but it was still cold. Her legs had to be freezing.
He moved back through the house, pulled on his own sweatshirt and socks, went back to the family room to grab a throw and then down the hall to the front door.
Her head turned when he opened the storm door.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“Hey,” he whispered back, moving to her and throwing the blanket over her legs, tucking it around her hips before he nabbed the other rocker, pulled it up beside her and sat his ass in it.
He tipped it back, cocked his knees and lifted his feet to the railing.
He wasn’t surprised she was here. She’d held it together for Miah so he could hold it together for Becky during dinner.
Therefore, it had gone well.
It had been the miracle Cap said it would be.
DNA tests were fast-tracked and pending but they already knew there was no denying it from the pictures. The meeting made that solid. Miah and Becky’s grandparents recognized them the second they saw them and they were beside themselves, both women and one of the men breaking down instantly, necessitating Silas and Sondra leading them out to pull them together.
But they did, returned and they had dinner.
It had been a strange night.